


If Things Had Been Different

by EbbaTriesToWrite



Series: The Old Guard - tumblr request fills [5]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26149672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbbaTriesToWrite/pseuds/EbbaTriesToWrite
Summary: It’s been fifteen years since he last saw the others when it happened. He was cooking for once and the knife slipped. He hissed and ran his finger under some water to rinse off the blood. Only, when he pulled his hand out from under the stream, he realised it was still bleeding. He stared at his finger in shock, not quite comprehending what it meant yet.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Everyone, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Old Guard - tumblr request fills [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881205
Comments: 27
Kudos: 220





	If Things Had Been Different

It’s been fifteen years since he last saw the others when it happened. He was cooking for once and the knife slipped. He hissed and ran his finger under some water to rinse off the blood. Only, when he pulled his hand out from under the stream, he realised it was still bleeding. He stared at his finger in shock, not quite comprehending what it meant yet. 

He wrapped his finger with a paper towel and watched in sick fascination as the white turned red. A laugh bubbled up his throat but it soon dissolved into sobs. His knees went weak and he folded in on himself on the ground, holding his hand to his chest as relief filled his entire being. He had waited for so long for this moment and he’d been terrified that he’d have to wait for centuries more, if not milenia. 

But there was something else blooming along with the relief; longing. Not for the end of course, that had been in full bloom for ages already, but for his family, his fated one. The ones he wasn’t allowed to make contact with no matter how much he wanted to. He wondered if this would allow it. They’d want to know, wouldn’t they? 

He stumbled to his feet and wiped the snot and tears off his face. The bleeding had slowed by the time he unraveled the paper but the wound was still there and the corner of his lips tugged upwards slightly. 

He tried to call Nile, he figured she’d be the one most likely to hear him out but the number leads to nothing but a robotic voice telling him it’s unavailable. Next he tried Andy and then Joe and then Nicky, all of which reached the same automatic reply. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest, it made sense that they’d dumped their phones. 

Copley had gotten better at covering their tracks it seemed, having learnt from his previous failures, but it was probably more due to the fact that Booker hadn’t really been keeping up with the technical advancements in the last decade. So he left his apartment with his coat wrapped tightly around himself and went to buy himself envelopes and stamps. 

Once he got back to the apartment - he never could bring himself to call this place home -, he sat himself at the kitchen table to write a letter. It felt nostalgic but he had never found it so hard to find his words before. 

He agonised over the letter for days and the amount of crumpled papers around him was well above a dozen. When he finally managed to write one he was pleased with, he couldn’t bring himself to send it. The only address he could send it to was Copley’s and he didn’t want just anyone to read what he’d written and so he wrote another letter. 

He sent that one first, it contained instructions to not open the next letter he’d send. A week later he sent the next one, just to be sure they arrived in the right order. And after that, all he could do was wait. 

* * *

  
  


Joe shook the snow out of his hair as they shuffled into Copley’s house and smiled when he saw that Nile and Andy were already there. He gave them each a hug and looked on fondly as Nicky did the same. Copley greeted them with an offer of hot tea and Joe felt a small spike of sadness pierce his heart at the sight of his graying hair. He knew the man probably had a few more decades left but that didn’t mean it made it much easier to be reminded of the limited time mortals had. 

Much to everyone’s relief Andy had regained her immortality and she remained looking as beautiful and strong as she always had - not that Joe thought she’d lose any beauty with age, or strength for that matter. 

“I uh-” Copley seemed to hesitate for a moment, “I got a letter from Booker.” he paused, gauging their reactions, “Well, two actually.” 

“What’d they say?” Nile asked when it became apparent that the others didn’t know what to say. 

“I only read the first one,” Copley said calmly and held out an unopened envelope to Andy, “he asked me not to read this one.” 

Andy looked to each of them, clutching onto the envelope tightly. Joe felt a seed of worry take root in the pit of his stomach, Booker wouldn’t break the rules of his sentence over just anything. Whatever this was, it was important.

“Open it.” Nicky said calmly but Joe could tell he was concerned as well. 

They waited with bated breath as Andy teared open the envelope and read it. Joe glanced at Nicky and worried that he might break the cup he was holding by how tightly he was gripping it. A gasp tore his attention back to Andy and he felt his heart rate pick up when he noticed the tears in her eyes.

“Oh God.” she placed a hand over her mouth and silently held the letter out for Joe to take.

Nicky and Nile sat on each side of him and read along with him.

  
  


_ I do not know how to start this but I suppose it would be best to get right to the point.  _

_ I cut my finger and the wound is not healing. I hope you do not blame me for reaching out over this but I hope you would like to know. And even if you wished not to know, I figured it would be better this way than to have you waiting to meet someone who cannot be there in 86 years.  _

_ I want to thank you all for the time we have had together, and I am sorry for limiting that time. I am sorry for a lot of things, but I think you all know that already. I should have appreciated what I had but I was too consumed by my grief and my pain to see it. You gave me a family after I lost mine and I will always love you and thank you for that.  _

_ I have no way of knowing when you will read this but I will be waiting for you where we planned to meet on the 1st of January and if you do not show I will assume you have either not received my letter or you would not like to see me. Both of which are understandable, although I will be hoping it is the former.  _

_ Be well, _

_ Sébastien Le Livre _

  
  


“It’s February already.” Nile gasped, looking at them with eyes that showed just how young she was.

“We have to go to London.” Nicky said, voice shaky.

“You-” Andy stood and looked at Copley, making him shrink in on himself purely because of the intensity of her gaze, “track him down. He might not be there anymore.” 

He might not even be alive anymore, his mind unhelpfully added.

* * *

  
  


Copley managed to find where Booker had been staying but it wasn’t the only thing he found and Andy felt empty even as he watched Nicky cry as he clutched onto Joe who was full on sobbing. Nile was sitting next to her, holding the tablet in a limb grip and Andy wanted to smash it to pieces but her mind felt detached from her body. 

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise but when Copley reluctantly told them that Booker had killed himself, it still felt like the ground fell out from below her. He was the third soldier she’d lost. She mentaly scolded herself, she needed to stop referring to the people she loved as soldiers in an attempt to detach herself from them. It never worked anyways, they will always be more than soldiers. They were family. 

And she hadn’t been able to protect them. 

“We should go to his grave.” Nile spoke softly but she could hear the tears in her voice.

He’d been buried in an unmarked grave, along with other people who had lost their lives with no name on the records, with no one to claim their body. Booker had hung himself in the room he’d rented in a run down inn. Andy supposed it could be seen as poetic, his last death being the same as his first, but it broke her heart because she knew that hanging had been traumatic for him.

She remembered a mission decades back, when Booker had been separated from the others and he had somehow ended up strangled, unable to get the cord off from around his throat. Even after they got him loose he couldn’t calm down, stuck in his memories as he couldn’t pull the air back into his lungs. He had nightmares for weeks after that and one night, as Nicky and Joe hugged him tight, he had shamefully admitted he wished he’d dream of Quynh again. 

Andy couldn’t fathom why he’d put himself through that again. 

“We should pay our respects.” Joe said eventually, voice scratchy and shaky. 

Andy got to her feet on shaky legs and nodded even as her mind felt far away. So many people lost, yet she was still here.

It was all so unfair.

* * *

  
  


Nile worried her lip between her teeth as she watched Andy drive, her hands were clutching the steering wheel so tight her knuckles turned white. She had offered to drive but Andy had insisted and Nile now knew her well enough that she was using it as a distraction. It wasn’t a healthy coping mechanism by any means but just this once, Nile let it slide, she didn’t have energy to argue. 

She felt a bit guilty each time a tear slipped out and hastily wiped them away. She had only been with Booker for a few days but she had felt the same connection to him as she did the others. She had learnt much about him from the other’s stories and she had been excited for when they could all reunite so that she could get to know him properly. She mourned for his tragic death and for what she would now never get to experience. 

Nicky and Joe were silent in the backseat but when she glanced back at them she saw that they were holding hands and their faces were streaked with tears they didn’t even bother to wipe off. She could only imagine what they were feeling and she cursed the universe for being so cruel. They were supposed to have time  _ damnit,  _ time to heal and to reconcile and to be happy. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

* * *

  
  


The visit to the grave had been short and Nicky had prayed for Booker’s soul as he lit a candle to place by the gravestone. They had whispered goodbyes and checked into a hotel nearby. Andy had gone out shortly after, claiming she needed some air but Nicky was pretty sure she was just getting drunk. Nile had locked herself in her room to give them space and if Nicky hadn’t been so broken inside he would have offered for her to stay by their side. 

But he needed to be alone with Joe and they laid down on the bed, curled up around each other not saying a word. There was nothing to be said, they both felt the same things; sadness and regret. If only they had gone to Copley’s earlier, things would have been different. He had wanted to punch Copley after they had read the letter for not telling them sooner. 

But even then, as the urge coursed through him, he knew that it wouldn’t have made a difference. They wouldn’t have cancelled the mission over a letter they didn’t know the contents of. Even after a decade and a half the anger and hurt over Booker’s betrayal burned hot. Even now it was still there. But the waves of grief were slowly drowning that fire. 

He pulled Joe impossibly closer and let out something close to a whimper and his lover let out a soft humm of understanding before the sound of their choked off cries filled the room. 

Oh, how he wished things could have been different. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! 
> 
> This is a request fill from an ask on Tumblr, come talk to me over there pls:  
> [EbbaTriesToWrite](https://ebbatriestowrite.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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